The Death of the Income Tax

A Progressive Consumption Tax and the Path to Fiscal Reform

Daniel S. Goldberg

takes a fresh look at what kind of tax system a 21st century nation should have and can achieve
offers to change the way every American will relate to his government by eliminating the annual tax return for many of them
proposes a transformational change in how the U.S. will be funded by taxation, which will have far-reaching ramifications

The Death of the Income Tax

A Progressive Consumption Tax and the Path to Fiscal Reform

Daniel S. Goldberg

Description

The Death of the Income Tax explains how the current income tax is needlessly complex, contains perverse incentives against saving and investment, fails to use modern technology to ease compliance and collection burdens, and is subject to micromanaging and mismanaging by Congress. Daniel Goldberg proposes that the solution to the problems of the current income tax is completely replacing it with a progressive consumption tax collected electronically at the point of sale.

The Death of the Income Tax

A Progressive Consumption Tax and the Path to Fiscal Reform

Daniel S. Goldberg

Introduction

PART I
The Problem: The Income Tax is Broken

Chapter 1-What is the Income Tax and Why is it Broken?

Chapter 2-Taxing Income is a Flawed Concept

Chapter 3-Tax Planning Under the Income Tax

Chapter 4-Progressive Taxation

Chapter 5-Tax Expenditures

Chapter 5 Appendix-Kingdom of PAL:A Parable of Tax Expenditures, Tax Shelters, and the Passive Activity Loss Rules.

Chapter 6-The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT): An Admission of Failure

Chapter 7-The Intractable Problem of Tax Cheating

Chapter 8-The Deadweight Cost of the Personal Income Tax

PART II
The Solution

Chapter 9-Tax Consumption Instead of Income

Chapter 10-Individual Level Consumption Taxes

Chapter 11-Business Level Consumption Taxes

Chapter 12-The Current Internal Revenue Code: An Income Tax, a Consumption Tax, or a Hybrid?

Chapter 13-An Introduction to an Integrated Two-Tier Consumption Tax

Chapter 14-e-Tax: An Electronically Collected Progressive Consumption Tax as the Successor to the Income Tax

Chapter 15-e-Tax Redux: Special Considerations

Chapter 16-Transition to e-Tax

Conclusion and Prospects for Change

Appendix A-Tax-inclusive Rate vs. Tax-exclusive Rate and Gross-up

Production and Consumption Charts-Simplified Production and Consumption Cycle, and Flow of Income & Expenditures Cycle

The Death of the Income Tax

A Progressive Consumption Tax and the Path to Fiscal Reform

Daniel S. Goldberg

Author Information

Daniel S. Goldberg is Professor of Law (Taxation) at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. He has served as the Professor-in-Residence for the National Office of the Internal Revenue Service and has practiced tax law as Of Counsel with law firms in Washington DC and Baltimore. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.